


Bloodline

by Noctilucence



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Family Feels, Family is everything, Gen, INTERFAMILY RIVALRY, Runaan losing all his privilage, associated members of Runaan's fam including sister and granddaddy, but a Grown Up AU, dadnaan, elf and DRAGON POLITICS, grandelder atreus is an old jerk, life and death, runaan compensates for loss by absorbing traits of lost loved ones, runaan fucking hates the word Pedigree, runaan learns a very twisted version of that, runaan learns to grow up at the ripe age of 21, self-indulgent dadnaan au, still set in Xadia post human exile, thoroughbred family of warriors, young runaan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2019-12-30 11:18:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18314339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noctilucence/pseuds/Noctilucence
Summary: What if Runaan was actually Rayla's dad + if the dragon prince had more game of thrones vibes AU.Hailing from an elite warrior family, Runaan's misstep in young love brings him wildly unprepared to the challenges of early fatherhood, the expectations of his grandfather and his duty as righteous executioner.





	Bloodline

_Prologue_

_**_

Runaan took the long way homeward from the years spent at the monastery where he had been educated and trained in the ways meant for potential Dragon Guard candidates. He missed home, but the looming promise of returning to life under Grandelder Atreus’ strict rule did not make him hurry.

He was to receive the news of his initiate training several moons later; between now and then, time seemed to pause, and Runaan relished the rest that came with the freedom from regiment and waking at dawn every single day.

It was guaranteed news, almost. The tutors at the academy had looked at him favourably, not only as the leader of his pack of students, but as a candidate whose lineage had come _from_ the first Dragon Guard.

A fact too eagerly shared by Grandelder at every chance; their entire family had produced generations of worthy warriors since the splitting of the land—it was their destiny and bloodright.

 

It was a half moon when he walked into a small town to stay the night; the tavern that doubled as an inn was holding a show by some travelling performers, and he was eager to enjoy this small indulgence in the face of a future of discipline and self-denial.

It was humble, but cozy with firefly lanterns and dragon-wax candles bringing a gentle glow. Hanging plants and an impressive herb garden at the bar softened the atmosphere.

He sat down, sipping at a pint of mead that was getting to his head far too easily after years of abstaining.

On centre stage among the bar patrons and minstrels, a stream of moonlit hair twirls around a dancer, half-veiled face looking out into the audience with allure and mystery in fabric that looked as if it were made of the night sky itself.

They (it wasn’t until later that night he discovered they were a _she_ ) seemed to be staring directly into his eyes for most of the performance. Silent, yet her body spoke in volumes with the way her arms waved and arched through the air and with every step and spin she took.

Runaan had thought he was possibly drunk, but at the end of the night, as the dragon-wax candles began to die down, she came to sit next to him, confirming her interest in him was not his own hallucination.

He raised his hand to call the barkeep. “Another pint, if you would.”  
Runaan’s hand goes to his coin bag, but the performer beats him to it with the clatter of change on the countertop.

She had the typical Moonshadow features; the white hair, the markings on her skin that denoted which family she was from—he did not recognise the lineage.

“I take it you enjoyed the show.” She said to him.  
It was not a question. The arrogance came off as charming, poised. Had he really stared at her all night like a fool for her to think that?

Runaan meets her gaze as she takes a seat by his side.  
“It was a lovely performance.” He replies as coolly as he could, head spinning a little, lips a little looser than usual.

The dancer seems amused. “What is your name?” she asks with a laugh.

“It’s Runaan.” He replies softly.

“I am Cadence," she announces.

"And I have seen the world all over Xadia.”

 

Her horns were adorned with chains, rather than the traditional silver guards or rings—and he would remember the way would chime and clink softly with every step she took, every tilt of the head during every nightly dance.

He would stay for a few more nights, if only because of the way she looked at him through her lashes, doe eyed, alluring and _wanting_ , though at the time he had been too naïve to understand exactly _what_ the subtle hunger in her gaze meant.

Every night, after her performance, they would stroll together under the passing clouds in the night sky. In the secrecy of the forest, she would sing for him. Mute as she was on stage, she bloomed in in the moonlight, just for him, ancient words in the old draconic tongue floating on her voice like a promise.

Surely a declaration of love, Runaan thought. She would sing for no other. The thought made his heart soar.

On the final night, he tells her of his departure, that he was due home by now to spend whatever freedom he had in the confines of familial duty. She seems to accept it with a knowing nod.

“Come stay with me tonight.”

And surely, he thought, their fates were sealed together, no matter where they went.

 

**

In the coming days before his initiate training was to begin, she had shown up at the great doors of Halos Hall, with a bundle of cloth in her arms and a small, unspoken plea. With a thousand questions on her face, his sister Inaya leads them to Grandelder Atreus' study.

Grandelder had never looked so furious—he had coupled outside the sacred vows, and to a simple travelling performer _._

_“Runaan, you knew better. It is not our way to indulge in every little attraction that crosses our path."_

Now he had been saddled with a child.

He did not want to admit that it was fear that prickled his spine as Cadence stood by in the corner of his grandfather's study, clutching the bundle in her arms, watching him stand before Atreus' desk as if it were the judge's bench. 

At first glance, Grandelder might have had the thought to exile him beyond Xadia for his discretion.

The bony, pallid finger points out to his sister instead.

“Inaya will take the child.”

Runaan looked stricken. “What?!”

His sister was immediately angry. “What?”

Grandelder pays no attention to the either of their outbursts. “You two, out. Leave me.”

Runaan meets Cadenza’s eyes helplessly as he passed through the doors to the study.

_**_

_“The common has agreed to give up the child and return to her place of origin to live in silence. Inaya will raise the child as her own—”_

_“Grandelder! I have Guard duties to uphold, I can’t—”_

_“You will take a leave of absence until Runaan finishes his training._

_You and Stellan are within vows, are you not?  
_ _It will be good rearing practice for you.”_

_Inaya bristles in her silence but shows no sign of it on her face or her hands, still by her side._

_Grandelder turns his cloudy eyes to Runaan._

_“As for you, vowbreaker. The time will come for you to make yourself of use and begin to cement allegiances to our house. Nobody will take a son by vow already burdened with the offspring of another.”_

_Runaan leans forward as if to take a step forward—Inaya’s arm flies up faster than he can see before him. His sister shakes her head as she meets his eyes._

_Grandelder sighs, waving a dismissive hand as if they were impertinent maids to be sent away._

_“Dismissed, the both of you. We will speak of this no more.”_

_**_

“She looks just like you.”

Inaya’s remark on the night they were to say goodbye—when Runaan had been due to leave at sunrise, not for Dragon Guard initiate training, but as a lowly assassin.

Grandelder thought it suitable punishment; someone as dishonourable as a rowdy halfwit, foolish enough to bear a child outside of sacred vows was not Dragon Guard material. He could not be trusted to behave himself in the light of the sights of Archdragons and council Grandmasters; what better idea than to send him to work in the shadows?

Runaan searches the tiny bundle for any sign of Cadenza besides the fact that the baby was as pale as milk.

 

“Who was she?” Inaya asks.

“A dancing illusionist. We crossed paths in a town on the way here.”

 

Inaya snorts. “Did she sing a spell for you or something?”

 

Runaan’s face turns away.

“She did. Only for me.”

His sister’s face distorts in a disbelieving laugh.  
“I never took my little brother to be the type to be entranced.” 

“I…”

What could he say? That he loved her?

 

“You barely knew each other.” Inaya finishes for him, swaying with the baby in her arms.

 

Runaan conceded. He had been a fool, and to argue was to prove that he still was.

“I’m sorry.”

His voice sounds small in the night, more like a child than the grown warrior he was supposed to be. 

"It does not do to cry over spilt milk." Inaya smiles reassuringly.  
“You’re a little overqualified for an assassin.” She laughs.

Runaan’s silence gives away the frown that creeps onto his face. “I suppose for all the hatred he harbours against me, Grandelder wouldn’t waste precious Guard blood by locking me in the dungeons.”

Inaya silently steps next to him, offering the sleeping infant to him. Runaan’s eyebrows shoot up as his arms open hesitantly to receive the bundle.

Heavier than he had expected.

“What’s her name, dad?” Inaya asks with a grin as she jabs her brother in the ribs.

Runaan glares at his sister for a moment before shifting to the tiny face in his arms.

 

“Rayla. For mother.”

Inaya smiles softly as she watches her brother gaze tentatively at this child he had inadvertently brought into the world—his eyes seem to fill with wonder and fear all at once and his arms shift instinctively around Rayla as his body adjusted to her weight.

She wanted to watch it forever, the sight of her little brother melting before a being that was smaller than his forearm.

 

If only time would stop for a little longer for Runaan, who was about to go and learn the ways of death. Holding new life in his arms, he almost looked like a stranger to her.

 

He would probably become yet another person once he sheathed the weapons of death on his belt.

 

“The sky is lightening. It’s time to say goodbye.”

 

_**_

Six moon phases had passed by at the pace of an eternity—he had never felt so distant and homesick before, not even when he had left for the academy to join the Guard for years at a time.

His chest ached as if someone had stabbed him over and over again until there was nothing but a hollow emptiness inside—he should have been with Rayla, making sure she was alright, watching for signs her horns were growing properly, keeping her safe. 

 

Inaya’s letters to him read like an excited young new mother—it was meant to bring him relief (and he presumed Grandelder had ordered for news of Inaya’s newfound motherhood to be spread far and wide), but all it did was feed the yawning maw of missing her. Yet he kept reading them hungrily, because somehow the piercing loneliness was better than ignorance.

 

Upon satisfying his teachers that he was more than ready to join the teams in circuit (as expected of a former potential Guard recruit), Runaan flew home with more speed than he’d shown in all his training, stopping only for food and sleep.

Stars only knew if Grandelder would even let him see Rayla—but none of it mattered; he _had_ to see her or he would surely die the second death.

 

**Author's Note:**

> fun facts: Grandelder went from not having a name to possibly being named Aegisthus, but it means "fat from goats" so that got scrapped for Atreus, which means Fearless and reads easier. 
> 
> Inaya is an Arabic name meaning care and protection.
> 
> This whole thing is a self-indulgent Dadnaan AU (after I realised Rayla's actual canon parents only disappear 4 months prior to Book 1, which begs the question: Why did Runaan have to raise her if her parents were still alive? why did they even have Rayla if they didn't have time to raise her properly??


End file.
